1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of communications. More particularly, this invention manages detailed information about all incoming communications to a landline communications device, such as a residential phone connected to the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN), and delivers this information to a wireless communications device, such as an alphanumeric pager.
2. Description of the Related Art
The field of telecommunications has experienced explosive growth, and more growth is planned as telecommunication access and numerous communication devices improve. This explosive growth is revolutionizing message notification and similar services. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,006,087 discloses a method and system for delivering a voice mail notification of a voice message left on a subscriber's wireless service network. When a message is left in a subscriber's mailbox assigned to the subscriber's cellular phone, the voice mail system generates a voice mail notification that includes a calling number, the name of the calling party, and an index listing various messages so that a subscriber can scroll through the messages and choose a desired message to retrieve and play. The voice mail notification is forwarded to and displayed by the cellular phone operated by a subscriber.
In today's telecommunications world, it is commonplace for subscribers to have multiple wired (i.e., landline) and wireless communications devices connected to various global telecommunications networks. For example, a subscriber may have a first phone number assigned to a residential landline telephone, a second phone number assigned to a business telephone, a third phone number assigned to a mobile phone, and a fourth phone number assigned to a wireless paging device. Thus, many subscribers have multiple wired and wireless devices with each device having a different phone number and with each device connected to different messaging systems and to different communications networks.
When an incoming communication is placed to a particular communications device, a subscriber typically has no way of knowing about that incoming communication if the subscriber is away from the communications device. Using a conventional approach, when a message is left on a messaging system assigned to a particular communication device, the messaging system causes the associated communications network to set the message waiting indicator on the called communications device; however, it is incapable of setting detailed messaging information on the subscriber's other additional communications devices (wired and wireless). For example, when a message is left on a subscriber's mobile phone messaging network, the subscriber's paging device is incapable of providing detailed messaging information associated with the message left on the mobile phone messaging network. Since the purpose of having multiple communication devices is to allow a subscriber to maintain constant communication, conventional approaches fall short by not being able to provide the ability to deliver detailed messaging information across all communication devices. Within the prior art, subscribers have attempted to overcome this deficiency by utilizing a feature in voice mail systems referred to as outbound calling. An outbound calling feature allows a subscriber to designate a telephone number (that may be assigned to a different communications device) that is dialed by the voice mail system during a fixed time period if a message is waiting for the subscriber in the voice mail system.
Using this approach, subscribers have also designated pagers' phone numbers as the number to be called for the outbound calling, or, have designated the telephone number of a wireless or landline telephone. One problem associated with designating a pager as the device to be called by the outbound calling is that it requires a subscriber to carry both a pager to receive a general notification and a cellular phone to receive the detailed information. One problem associated with directing calls from the outbound calling feature to a wireless phone or a landline phone is that the subscriber may not wish to access or to be bothered by all detailed message notifications.
In addition to receiving real-time information related to messages received and stored in a voice mail system, A subscriber may also desire to know about all incoming communications to a communications device, such as a residential telephone. For example, a subscriber may desire to know if an incoming communication is being answered, if it receives a busy signal, if it is terminated, if it is forwarded to a different communications device (i.e., there currently isn't any way for a subscriber to know about all incoming communications when a line is ringing, answered, busy, etc., with detailed call information).
Subscribers away from their homes would like a way to know who has called them and whether or not that caller left a message. A subscriber can obtain this information in a proactive way by calling their voice mail systems/answering machines at will and determining whether there are any messages. However, this does not provide a complete list of who has called them, just who left a message. Some Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) is capable of paging a subscriber when an incoming call arrives, but this is limited to a pre-programmed set of callers they wish to be notified about. CPE is used to refer to equipment that a customer connects to the telephone system. Moreover, CPE does not announce the Calling Name delivery (CNAM) and Caller Identification (ID) because of the expense involved in doing so. Also, the duration of a call that does not terminate at the customer's premises is unknown by the CPE (for example, the call went to voice mail).
Thus, there is a current need for systems and methods for selecting, retrieving, storing, and managing detailed information related to all incoming communications to and all outgoing communications from a landline communications device. There is a further need to efficiently deliver this information to a remote communications device in order to provide real time and quasi-real time detailed message notification and similar information. There is still a further need to forward the communication or its equivalent to the remote communications device. Finally, there is a need to harmonize such information associated with multiple landline communications devices using different messaging systems.